The Shadow's Ward

by Eric Angers

  For the first few, he followed, careful to stay out of sight, just to watch the way the boy worked. It truly was impressive. He had not seen anyone work with such precision and raw talent since, well, himself. No, the boy was better, and Vastian knew it, had known it from the day he started training him. It was a wonder someone so new at professional skulking could meld with the shadows so well, seeming to disappear, even become part of them. To an untrained eye there was nothing, no one, standing at the large wood door, thieves tools working swiftly and silently. Nothing slipped through the slight opening in the door before it closed behind, just as nothing slipped silently in behind him once Vastian was sure Norgaard had taken enough of a lead. Two shadows bounded throughout the halls and rooms of the merchant’s home, melting from corner to corner, darkness wrapping itself about their bodies as if it were alive and welcoming them home. It was an odd quirk of those who practiced the stealth arts. Those who were good, or those who trained the most, no one was certain, began to feel a pull from the shadows. When Vastian was near shadows or darkness it pulled at him, it reached for him. Through his travels and associations with the best stealth practitioners in the land not a single one knew exactly what was happening. But, if they let it, the darkness invited them in and wrapped them in its embrace. To the lay eye, they were not visible. Just another trick of the light, that shadow was not actually moving.

  Vastian’s grin betrayed his pleasure. He could not help but be impressed, his student moved much faster than he usually did, and as far as he could tell, he was not missing a thing. It was a struggle to keep up at some points, and not be seen others, such as when Norgaard entered a room only to return seconds later having found nothing. Vastian having to stop short and dart back the way he came before the two darting shadows collided and revealed one another. The strongbox would be upstairs, close to the owner, who very likely thought it safer if he kept it nearby. That was just more dangerous, because while the Guild had a code, not everyone who stole was in the Guild, and even the code left room for interpretation. Most importantly, a thief scored his loot and then he got away with it. If someone got in the way and had to be killed, well, the first two parts of the code were priority. This merchant’s luck held, however, and had no cause for alarm; Vastian was certain Norgaard would have no trouble securing the prize without disturbing a soul.

  Keeping a good distance from the boy, Vastian let the shadows surround him and watched his pupil slip into the master’s bedchamber, searching at the same time with his hands and his eyes. In no time, he withdrew a locked box from beneath the bed, a snoring heavyset man laying still upon the mattress above, undisturbed. The boy made quick work of the simple lock, dumping the contents into a dark cotton sack before relocking the box and returning it to its place. The boy fled the room in a flash, leaving Vastian standing in the hallway, nearly invisible to the human eye.

  His student’s work was a sight to behold if he were being honest with himself. There were a fair number of professionals who could use a lesson from the very young and very new Norgaard. Throw in some more experience and some advanced techniques and the world would have itself a new Shade. But contemplating his future lesson plan was not what kept Vastian in that hallway, eyes fixed on the large lump underneath the blankets. The research he had done had shown this man to be downright slimy, cutting every corner imaginable while working shady deals in the underground to keep his business on top. He was the owner of a general store, dry goods, foodstuffs, the things people need on a day to day basis. Master Kelda was the only store in town dealing in Imperial rice, imported spices from Kador, and all manner of off season grains from Phelandir. Being the only game in town after some shrewd speculative business moves, he got more than fair prices from the sellers, kept his wages for his workers low, and gouged the pricing in his stores. Whenever someone tried to open up to compete, they found they could not get the same goods, or when they did, their wagons were raided and it never made it to market. The man was a pig and a scoundrel, far worse than any thief Vastian had ever met and just the type of person who needed to disappear.

  After a moment, Vastian crept, from shadowy corner to corner, until he reached the door and he stepped out into the crisp night air. Master Kelda had to wait for another day, he got a reprieve he did not deserve. Now, Vastian had to race back to the safe house and be waiting for Norgaard’s arrival. He smiled, pleased with his apprentice’s work.

  That is, until a dirty young street urchin ran up to him, handed him a note, and ran off holding his hands out to no one in particular for payment.

  Vastian did not bother to follow to see who had sent it. He knew already, and knew that the one who wrote it would not have come in person. His smile faded when he read the words: I fear the worst. It was plain, un-coded, though it held great meaning for Vastian.

  His smile faded in an instant. Drawing up his hood he quickly found a tavern, wine, and bought the bottle. He would swallow his pain, and drown it in the dark purple liquid. Stumbling became his preferred method of mobility and by nightfall he had sought every lonely alley of Asunder that he knew, pulling the shadows around him, into him. There was a hole, an emptiness, a void inside Vastian that he had never been able to fill. Thievery, blood and death, these things had only left him needing something more, something even more powerful and frightening to get his blood pumping. At one time, it may have been a woman, the touch of another that could have saved him, made him whole again. But there was always something holding it back. He always felt on the edge of a cliff when he was with her, ready to plunge to the bottom, to what? Death? He never found out, always backing away to relative safety. And it was taken from him! He could still remember that day, he could remember his rage, an emotion he had worked hard to not let interfere with his work. It had overcome him, and the aftermath .. it was devastating.

  The bottle empty, it shattered on the ground where he dropped it. His feet would carry him back to the safehouse whether he would remember it or not.

  The next day when Vastian awoke, Norgaard was already out, probably avoiding him. Last night did not go well. Norgaard had walked in arrogant with his success, expecting praise from his master. What Vastian gave him instead was a dose of reality, almost. The boy had done nothing wrong on his job, but it would not do to have someone this new developing an ego. He would need to continue to analyze his own flaws, minor though they may be, in order to continue to grow.

  “I’m not here to praise you, boy, I’m here to train you,” Vastian had told him after Norgaard seemed displeased with Vastian’s casual acceptance of Norgaard’s success.

  “Train me? All I do is run your errands. A thank you, good job, Norgaard once in awhile would be nice. I’m unstoppable out there, and you act like nothing I do is good enough!” Norgaard’s voice was rising. He did not understand, if Vastian did not hold him to a higher standard, he would become complacent and when a real challenge stood in his way, he would fail, or die.

  Vastian gritted his teeth and spoke back to his apprentice in a forcefully measured voice, “You don’t understand. You are not good enough yet and to falsely imply it would lead you to failure.”

  The boy threw up his hands and stormed out the door into the cold night. Vastian sighed, shaking his head. It was in his best interest. It was. He followed his exit but to a different path, toward the Creeping Dragon where he might find more wine.

  Chapter VII.

  Norgaard

  Norgaard had done nothing but honor his master’s wishes. He remained patient even while he knew he could do more. When his master finally allowed him to strike out and prove himself with real missions, he performed them expertly, even though he knew his master had set them up ahead of time and yet still followed him. The man was not very good at the very skills he taught if Norgaard could read everything he did, and spot him while he tried to remain hidden. On top of it all, when Norgaard was finally sure the job he was on was real he returned with the prize only to have it taken from him without a
word never to be seen again. I’m being used, he thought.

  The bloody old man had spotted his desperation, used it against him, showed him what he could have figured out on his own, just to be sure his ‘apprentice’ would be capable of stealing for him without much chance of getting him caught. And Norgaard had fallen for it for weeks. He would not be the tool of a crazy old drunkard anymore. One last job; he’d let the old man find one last payout so he could at least walk away with something. Then he would work on his own, find a room he could rent, scout his own jobs.

  Norgaard had stormed out the night before and stayed gone through the night. He did not return to the shack until he was certain Vastian had left for his early morning walks. Only then did he enter with the breakfast he had stolen moments before. Stale bread made a poor meal as the slight young man sat in the sole chair at the wobbly old table. For all of its wear and age, at least it was clean, he had seen to that himself. The two, master and apprentice, had only one decent meal a day, usually after Norgaard had successfully navigated some challenge or other. There had been no challenge yet today, there could not have been. So they made do with the bare essentials. Well, Norgaard did, he had never seen Vastian eat stale bread. Probably because the man stayed out of the safe house most of the time, and he ate elsewhere. Norgaard imagined it, whole roasted hens with sour fruit, boiled potatoes, pints of ale, cherry pie! The grin that had grown on his face fell away quickly as the bread crumbled in his hands. He scooped the tasteless bits up and swallowed them and his shoulders slumped. At least he was surviving.

  The door creaked open just enough to let his master slip through, quickly closing behind him. His master shook off the cold and removed his coat and scarf. As he stumbled passed the table to fall into his straw bed, the boy could smell the wine, a folded paper appeared in front of Norgaard; he picked it up. Another job. A hastily drawn map marked the location of a noble’s summer home just outside of town. Red marks on the map indicated possible guard locations, though the residence would be unoccupied for winter. The guards meant that this noble was wealthy enough to keep them employed year round, and that there was something worth protecting. There was no wall and only the front was well lit, according to the sketch, meaning there was no easy entry on the other sides. The only other drawing was of a framed painting of a woman, circled. This was what he was after.

  A bloody painting! he thought to himself as he retrieved his dark cloak from the hooks he had installed weeks ago. How he was supposed to trade that for money he did not know, but he would have to figure it out. Cold no longer bothered him, he noticed, slipping into the frozen night. He was from the Northlands, of course, so he was used to the cold more than an outsider, but it was more than that. Where before he wore layers of clothing topped with thick furs, now he wore just one layer of leather and his black cloak. It had to have been from all the outside drills.

  The sky was clear but with no moon to betray his position, not that it mattered. He jogged along a practiced route on the side streets and alleys of Asunder until he reached a cluster of poorly constructed wooden buildings he knew well. They sat in just such a way that anyone could easily leap to the top of a barrel, then to the roof, then the next roof and quickly climb onto the city wall. This was his preferred method for leaving the city unnoticed. On the other side of the wall, other secretive folk had worn handholds into the stone; it was just a matter of knowing where they were in the dark. Once down he sprinted to the cover of the trees where he slowed to a walk toward the marked destination.

  A few minutes passed, trudging through ankle deep snow, before he reached the outskirts of the manor. There was no real reason to cover his tracks, if he did his job well, the guards would not be aware anything was wrong for days, and then all the tracks in the world would not lead them back to Norgaard. For a thief to be caught, he had to be caught in the act or shortly thereafter. Too much time passing meant the goods could easily have been passed off to a third party. He remained hidden at the tree line, thirty feet of open space between himself and the building, two standing torches lit the area for the door guard and his two friends patrolling in opposite directions around the premises. There were a few objects in the yard that could help him sneak up to the main door, but that was not his intention. He was only watching the guards to see how diligent they were, calculate their patrol route. Minutes later, he had seen all he needed to, from the timing of their route around the house to their inattentiveness, probably because they were watching an empty place.

  He moved silently to the unlit back of the two story manor, it would go the longest without someone watching it. If someone took security seriously, they would understand you put your guards on a same direction rotation, so more of the property could be watched at the same time and someone was always near enough the front door guard AND the other patrol to help them. But if they wanted to make it easier for people like Norgaard, he was not going to complain. The snow was untouched here, except for the guard patrols, and when they passed, Norgaard took four quick leaps, careful to use the already worn path, up to a first story window. Locked from the inside, but it was not a problem. A thin metal strip appeared in his hand from within the leather case attached to his belt on his back. Slipping it between the windows he pushed it up and he felt the latch slide over. He pulled the windows aside and let his body pour through the opening.

  There were no guards within, why would there be? It would be too tempting for one of them to just walk away with something a little more valuable than their paycheck. And there was plenty of value. Whoever owned this place liked to have their wealth around them at all times. It must remind them how important they were. Every piece of furniture was of the highest quality, and adorning every shelf and every wall were the most expensive worthless trinkets Norgaard had ever seen. Silver, gold, ivory, even a clock! He ignored it all until he found the painting on the second floor. The bust of Niran, the First Empress, was painted in oils on a canvas an arm span across. This was something special, it was an original, painted during her time, a time before the Judgement. Nearly everything had been lost during the Judgement, but a few forward thinking individuals sought out what they deemed important and attempted to hide it. Many of them paid with their lives, and the few who survived saved only a small fraction of the great works, then became rich by selling them. Now Norgaard moved through the house looking for something he could hide away for himself. He found it in the bedroom, a small golden figurine, worn to non recognition, but it would be worth its weight in, well, gold. Pocketing it, he went back for the painting.

  It was easy enough to lift off the wall, heavy, but nothing he could not manage. Its size was going to be a problem, however, as he remembered the window he came in. There was no way he could get it out without going through the front door. Another of the old man’s puzzles, he thought. No, it could not be, there was no way Vastian could have known, he just wanted the painting. The main door was not an option, and cutting the painting in half was out of the question. The frame was nice, probably worth a small fortune itself.

  Norgaard found himself with a bare canvas oil painting over his head while he carefully navigated through the woods back to Asunder. This isn’t suspicious looking at all he thought. The canvas was much more fragile than he had anticipated. How to get it over the wall was not even a thought until he was within view, and then it seemed to him impossible. The only way the blasted painting was getting into the city was through the gates, which would not be open until dawn, and then only if he concealed it. So he stood, hidden in the forest near the road until morning, covering the painting with his cloak and thus ensuring his exposure to the elements. The hours were agonizing, he could not set the painting down in the snow, so he held it, while he leaned on a tree. He thought about what he would say to his ‘master’ when he returned. He did all the work, had to wait for hours in the cold, just so Vastian the drunk could pawn off his goods and make himself rich. The man probably already had another house in the city with al
l the trinkets he had brought back. Finally, with the sun peeking over the horizon, he carried it on to the road and walked right up to the gate with a hurried step.

  “Hold on there,” the watchman said, stepping in front of him. “What have you got there and where are you going with it?”

  “This? Sir, this is a treasure! It is a certified copy of the First Empress and my master is expecting it to arrive this morning,” Norgaard said, sounding rushed. “If I don’t have it to Master Valda’s estate on time, he surely will not pay me!”

  The guard let him through without further questioning and Norgaard relaxed, stepping more slowly and suredly as he made his way back to the safe house. Throwing open the door, he sighed finally able to place the painting carefully down on the table. It draped over the sides by its length and width. His master awoke to the sun on his face and cold air leaking in through the still open door, which Norgaard then rectified so he himself could thaw out his bones.

  Vastian rubbed his eyes. “Good, you’re back, we can get some breakfast. I’ll deal with that later,” he said, gesturing to the priceless work of art.